Garden of Beasts

on his desktop. Then he said, “You wait here for any telegrams or other messages about the case, Janssen.” Kohl took his Panama hat from the rack in the corner of his office. “And me, I have a thought.”
    “Where will you be, sir?”
    “On the trail of a French chicken.”

Chapter Twenty-Three
    The anxious atmosphere that hung about the three men in the boardinghouse was like cold smoke.
    Paul Schumann knew the sensation well—from those moments as he waited to step into the boxing ring, trying to remember everything he knew about his opponent, picturing the guy’s defenses, planning when best to dance under them, when to rise onto his toes and deliver a roundhouse or jab, figuring out how to exploit his weaknesses—and how best to compensate for your own.
    He knew it from other times too: as a button man planning his touch-offs. Looking at maps drawn in his own careful handwriting, double-checking the Colt and his backup pistol, looking over the notes he’d assembled of his victim’s schedules, preferences, dislikes, routines, acquaintances.
    This was the Before.
    The hard, hard Before. The stillness preceding the kill. The moment when he chewed the facts amid a feeling of impatience and edginess. Fear too, of course. You never got away from that. The good button men didn’t, in any case.
    And always the growing numbness, the crystalizing of his heart.
    He was starting to touch the ice.
    In the dim room, windows closed, shades down—phone unplugged, of course—Paul and Morgan looked over a map and two dozen publicity photos of the Olympic stadium, which Webber had dug up, along with a pair of sharply creased gray flannel trousers for Morgan (which the American had examined skeptically at first but then decided to keep).
    Morgan tapped one of the photos. “Where do you—?”
    “Please, one moment,” Webber interrupted. He rose and walked across the room, whistling. He was in a jovial mood, now that he had a thousand dollars in his pocket and wouldn’t have to worry about lard and yellow dye for a while.
    Morgan and Paul exchanged frowns. The German dropped to his knees and began pulling records out from the cabinet beneath a battered gramophone. He grimaced. “Ach, no John Philip Sousa. I look all the time but they are hard to find.” He glanced up at Morgan. “Say, Mr. John Dillinger here tells me that Sousa is American. But I think he is joking. Please, the bandleader is English, is he not?”
    “No, he’s American,” the slim man said.
    “I have heard otherwise.”
    Morgan lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe a wager would be in order. A hundred marks?”
    Webber considered then said, “I will look into the matter further.”
    “We don’t really have time for music,” Morgan added, watching Webber examining the stack of disks.
    Paul said, “But I think we have time to cover up the sounds of our conversation?”
    “Exactly,” Webber said. “And we shall use . . .” He examined a label. “A collection of our stolid German hunting songs.” He turned on the device and set the needle inthe groove of the disk. A rousing, scratchy tune filled the room. “This is ‘The Deer-stalker.’” A laugh. “Appropriate, considering our mission.”
    The mobsters Luciano and Lansky did exactly the same in America—usually playing the radio, to cover up conversation in the event Dewey’s or Hoover’s boys had a mike in the room where they were meeting.
    “Now, you were saying?”
    Morgan asked, “Where is the photography session?”
    “Ernst’s memorandum says the pressroom.”
    “That’s here,” Webber said.
    Paul examined the drawing carefully and wasn’t pleased. The stadium was huge and the press box must have been two hundred feet long. It was located near the top of the building’s south side. He could take up position in the stands on the north side but that meant a very long shot across the entire width of the facility.
    “Too far. A little breeze, the distortion of the window . . . No. I couldn’t guarantee a fatal shot. And I might hit someone else.”
    “So?” Webber asked lethargically. “Maybe you could shoot Hitler. Or Göring . . . why, he’s as big a target as a dirigible. A blind man could hit him.” He looked over the map again. “You could get Ernst when he got out of the car. What do you think of that, Mr. Morgan?” The fact that Webber had gotten Paul into and out of the Chancellory safely had given the gang leader